Amanda Saurber
Advocate and member of the local Lived Experience Workgroup, Amanda Saurber, was recently hired by the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) to join their Community Strategic Team.
Amanda will join other people from across the country with lived experience of homelessness. Providing support to strengthen their voices while working in their local communities to end homelessness.
Wrap-Around Services
Amanda has a passion for connecting people leaving homelessness to wrap-around services. She firmly believes that people experiencing homelessness will only be successful if housing is coupled with wrap-around services.
Amanda knows this first-hand. She cycled in and out of homelessness and addiction a few times. But in 2021 she moved into stable housing and started reaching out herself for more supports. Amanda credits that shift to her success. She took free classes in the community and enrolled in Talbert House’s Returning Home Ohio program. She also credits her relationship with God and believes that she is here for a purpose. To help others.
Advocate for Change
Amanda is passionate about being an advocate for people in recovery and exiting homelessness. She describes herself as an “advocate for change.” She works as a Peer Support Worker through the Urban League of Southwest Ohio. Connecting the peers that she works with to resources and other supports to help them stay sober/clean, remain stably housed, and seek and gain employment.
Amanda also maintains her own Facebook page called Our Community Resources. It is aimed at connecting people to local resources and came out of her own need to learn more. Amanda realized how little she knew about navigating the world and took it upon herself to learn and understand more. She took financial literacy and homebuying classes offered in the community. Additionally, she began a list of community resources that now totals 3,000 listings. And Amanda recently launched it as a stand-alone website – Our Community Resources. And plans to launch it as a nonprofit in August.
Opportunity
Amanda joined our local People with Lived Experience Workgroup last year when it initially formed. She’s been a dedicated member of the team from the beginning. Because of her commitment and passion, our Continuum of Care Manager, Lora Ellis-Mazzaro, sent Amanda the opportunity to apply for a scholarship to NAEH’s national conference in March of 2024. And Amanda earned that scholarship. Lora again sent her information on applying to join NAEH’s national Community Strategic Team.
Amanda said that when she looked at the description of the NAEH Team, she knew it was for her. She saw it as an opportunity to get her ideas to a bigger, national platform. And as a chance to see what other communities are doing to end homelessness. Amanda wants to bring those ideas back to Cincinnati.
So she applied for the position, completed an interview, and accepted the two-year consulting position. She said that she was shocked to be offered the position. And she is very excited to start the work.
Fighter
Amanda plans to bring her passion for wrap-around services to the NAEH’s Community Strategic Team. She feels like the same old solutions to ending homelessness aren’t working for everyone. Additionally, she wants to see new and different responses to homelessness. Either from community groups or from the government. In Amanda’s own words:
“I want to fight for the people who don’t have a voice and fight for solutions to things that haven’t been solved yet.”
When asked what advice she would give to people currently experiencing housing instability or homelessness, Amanda encourages people to seek out help. And she added the encouraging words, “if I can do it, anybody can.”
